The BBC have confirmed that cult sitcom Absolutely Fabulous is on the brink of a return this morning, with Joanna Lumley – who played chain-smoking socialite Patsy – has told Hello! magazine that filming is due to start at in early autumn.
“In late August I start filming on three episodes of Absolutely Fabulous, which we are all ecstatic about,” said Lumley in her interview with the magazine. “Miss Saunders has been so busy writing Uptown Downstairs Abbey for Comic Relief and also Spice Girls: The Musical, I don’t think she’s started the script.”
Known to its legions of fans as ‘Ab Fab’, the show was created by Lumley’s co-star Jennifer Saunders and first broadcast in November 1992. It ran for three series and a two-part special between 1992 and 1996, before returning for two more series and another two specials between 2001 and 2004. The comedy was last seen on British screens in 2005, when Edina, Patsy and co-appeared in a sketch for Comic Relief.
A BBC spokesman said: “We’re putting the finishing touches to the deal to bring it back and as soon as we’re in a position to confirm it we will.”
The show which also starred June Whitfield as Edina’s mother and Julia Sawalha as her long-suffering daughter, focuses on the lives of the two wannabe It Girls who seem to spend most of their time drinking and using the word ‘daahling’.
“I think we just have to do it,” said Lumley when asked about the possibility of a new series in the past. “The great thing is that because we fast forwarded the story to where they’re very old and nearly dead and practically plugged into vodka machines, it doesn’t matter how beyond the previous series we do it.”
